Hi @amnitg , sorry for the delay on responding to your comment - I just saw it!

In my experience, knots are very tough and while they may look bad they don't seem to have a negative effect on performance. I can't see your knot very well, but it has obviously been well glued over so my guess is that it will be fine. If you try sanding or planing the glue off a little you could see how close it runs to the spine, but to me the angle of the knot looks to be left to right - towards the edge of the bat - rather than right to left - towards the spine.

This is a glaring example of how stickers can be used to hide imperfections, often enabling the batmaker to grade up a lower quality cleft. It is a bit unfair as the customer can pay more than he probably should, but I guess that most batmakers do it to some extent. Willow is a natural product of course, each cleft is different and batmakers work for money as well as love. In the end, for me, shot value is the only thing that matters. If the bat goes, then it really doesn't matter what it looks like.